Another Broken Wonderland
by Designated NPC
Summary: Based on the 'Alice Human Sacrifice' videos: The saga of a courageous sister, an intelligent brother, and the kind of nightmare only children could manage to find. Chapter Three, at last!
1. Under Yellow Roses

The forest itself had never been on any map, at least not officially; it had always just _been there_, just past the edge of the town, for as long as anyone could remember. The town itself wasn't entirely that old, but centuries ago the first settlers of the land had pushed the forest away from the plains, back over the low hills and across the river, and now it was just a line of green that happened to be visible from the city's limits. No-one ever really bothered with the forest, it being little more than a far-off landmark to which no-one gave a second thought, and aside from a few teenagers who came to splash in the river and picnic under the trees, the inhabitants of that nearby town generally just left the forest alone. It wasn't rumored to be haunted, and it didn't conceal the lair of a psychopathic killer... It was just a forest in the new millennium, once which had somehow escaped the logger's axe, and the people in the town had more important things to do.

This was part of the reason the Kagamine twins liked it so much. With nobody else around, it was somehow easier for them to exist.

Not that they didn't like other people; both Rin and Len were popular enough, with schoolmates and with adults who were impressed with their sunny, if slightly unruly, demeanors. But Rin and Len were not as impressed with their schoolmates or the adults around them, who were all so focused on rushing around doing boring, 'preparing-for-the-future' kinds of things, and it hadn't been too long into their lives that they'd realized their own interests were... a little different. They loved singing, for example, but they'd quit the choir because the only songs they were allowed to sing were standards, tried-and-true little ditties that their own grandparents could have been singing when they themselves were fourteen.

Of course, the twins had no way of knowing if their grandparents had been in the choir, if their mother sang like an angel or their father couldn't carry a note: Rin and Len were orphans, raised in the town's church like so many other abandoned children, and for as long as either could recall their only family had been each other. They didn't mind, of course, so they stayed close as they grew up... but, although they were attractive children in many ways, and they were adopted no fewer than a dozen times over the past decade-and-four, no family had kept them for very long.

("_'Kept us!'_" Rin would sometimes say, crossing her arms and puffing out her cheeks in indignation, looking a bit like a cute blond pufferfish. "Like we're puppies or something in a cardboard box!" And Len would nod in agreement, his arms folded across his chest.)

But, that was all right. Rin and Len, they had each other, and as far as they were concerned that was all they really needed. Well, there was food and such, and shelter was nice, but even then it didn't meant anything unless they were together, as the sisters of My Lady Of The Innocence had found out early on. The infant twins, at first, refused to sleep through the night unless they shared the same crib, and when they were a little older they wouldn't sleep in a bed at all if they couldn't see the other. This caused something of a problem when, at age seven, they were kindly told that as a young man and a young woman, they'd need to be separated _sometime_, so they would be moving into the boys' dorm and the girls' dorm respectively. That was the first time they'd run away, and the first time they'd found their way to the forest.

* * *

It probably wouldn't have happened if it had been a wet spring, but the rains had failed to arrive that year and the grass was, when laid out in the bright sunlight, beginning to turn yellow and sere. Lying on the flat grassland just outside the town, the twins didn't move as the other children, playing around them, began to straggle back to the church as the wind grew chill. At last, when the sky was sunset, Rin turned her head to look at her brother, lying beside her on the grass, the crisp dry blades tickling her cheek.

"I don't think we should go back tonight," she said, her young voice lisping childishly but quite firm in its conviction. "If we do, they're going to separate us, like Sister Sara said."

Len turned towards his sister, his boyish face serious and deep in thought, and then he nodded his agreement with as much finality as Rin's voice had held. "But we can't stay in town for the night. The Sisters are always telling us that it's dangerous to do that, because of bad men and... and stray animals." At seven, neither of the twins quite understood the dangers posed by those 'bad men' who so worried the nuns with their potential presence, but by now they'd already had a foster-family or two who'd taught them that not all adults were always nice to young children. And, as children still, the threat of loose animals, possibly scary ones, was enough to make them think twice about doubting their caretakers' warning.

Rin thought for a while about that, and Len thought as well, and then suddenly Rin sat up, bits of dried grass clinging in her blonde hair and to the gray cotton of her simple dress, and her odd yellow eyes - the eyes she shared with Len, the color that was a shade or so darker than their hair, but still lighter than the grass on which they now lay - and looked over the half-dried riverbed to the green line beyond. "We could hide in the forest," said Rin, and to a child of seven who'd heard plenty of fairy-tales that idea made perfect sense.

Len thought it made sense as well, at least most of it did, which is why his next statement was neither 'What if it gets cold in there?' or 'What if it rains?' and was instead "What if we meet a witch?" This question gave Rin pause, and she half-turned to look back at her brother, still lying on the shriveling grass. "Or a wolf? Or bears?" That serious expression was still on Len's face, and the matter at hand warranted it: Any child worth their bedtime-stories knew that forests, while potentially full of friendly animals and cozy hiding-places, might also hold hostile animals or wicked old crones behind its leafy green boughs. Rin chewed lightly at her lower lip, a nervous habit she'd yet to break, and fiddled with the grass under her hands; she couldn't quite find an answer, until it came to her like a bolt of lightning out of the now-dimming sky. With bright eyes, she looked down at Len and smiled. "Well, the stories always end with a happily ever after, right? Because sometimes the kids are really smart or they're really brave. So we should be fine because you're really smart and I'm really brave!" Rin beamed at this happy conclusion, then was surprised when Len pushed himself up into a sitting position looking upset.

"How come I can't be the brave one? I'm the man, after all!"

"You can't be the brave one because you got scared of the dark before," pointed out Rin, with an infuriating (to Len at least) confidence. "And you _CAN'T _be the man because you're just a kid."

"Well... You are too, you know," countered Len, and Rin grinned.

"But I'm still _OLDER_ than you!" Len didn't look entirely convinced, but that didn't prevent him from reaching for his schoolbag and his jacket, rising to his feet, and dusting himself off before holding out his free hand to Rin, who still sitting on the yellowed sward. "Well, we should hurry up," he said, apparently ready to change the subject. "We want to cross the river before it gets dark."

"It's half-dry anyway," laughed Rin, although she accepted his hand and let her brother pull her to her feet; she could've done it herself, of course, but sometimes Len needed to act like 'the man,' even if he wasn't. Rin was still very young, but she knew her twin well enough. That's how she knew he wouldn't stop her form teasing him, and she did so as they started across the field, her own gray jacket tied around her waist by the sleeves.

"You're such a scaredy-cat!"

"Am not!" insisted Len, wrinkling his nose at Rin's sing-songing voice, and Rin only giggled at her brother as they neared the river, barely trickling over its stone-dotted bed, swinging her own schoolbag from her other hand. Len mumbled something under his breath that cued Rin to try, however unsuccessfully, to stifle her giggles, but neither of them let go of the other's hand.

* * *

Crossing the river was easy enough; although the current dry spell wasn't quite bad enough to be a drought, it was enough to see the river at its lowest ebb ever, and numbers of exposed rocks lay pale and dark above the running water, ready to be used as stepping-stones for any intrepid crosser. Len went first over the impromptu stone bridge, perhaps to assuage his battered ego, and Rin followed behind him, their hands still linked and serving as both guide and safety-line. The water, if they'd fallen in it, wouldn't be much over their knees, but neither had any towels or spare clothes and they'd both prefer to avoid an accidental bath. Once, Rin came perilously close, her footsteps not quite following Len's and an unexpectedly-smooth boulder-surface nearly sending her into the drink, but Len felt the tug and counter-balanced her almost-fall by tugging on his sister's hand. Once safely righted, Rin sent Len a grateful smile over the running water, the setting sun sending glints of white light across the tiny rippling waves and Rin squeezed her brother's hand in thanks; Len, proud at his quick and helpful action, smiled back, and led Rin across the rest of the rocks with a bit more spring in his step.

Once on the other side of the river, even Rin had to thank Len's insistence on a quick crossing; it was now rapidly getting dark, and maneuvering over the river would have been infinitely more difficult if they'd waited much longer than they had. The children made it to the forest's edge before they had to admit it had gotten too dark to see, and Rin nudged Len to ask if he still had the candles and matches from the service that morning.

(The Kagamine twins knew that stealing was wrong, but as Len explained it, since he and Rin both more or less lived in the church, then taking the candles _FROM_ the church wasn't stealing, since it was kind of already theirs. Rin wasn't all that clear on the logic, but she knew that Len liked having some source of light at hand after the Sisters put out the lights, even if he never got around to using them. Len, thought Rin, was funny like that.)

"Yeah, I've got 'em," said Len, and he briefly let go of Rin's hand to rummage around in the bag at his side. Rin, although the moon was out on this night, realized for the first time that it was really, really dark, here on the edge of the forest, and for a moment her eyes strayed back to the town across the river, now lit by streetlights and the lights of homes... But, she'd been the one to suggest this after all! So Rin didn't say anything, just sidled an inch or two closer to Len's presence and waited for him to get the candle lit. A match scraped against the starter in the near-darkness, and then the match-head burst suddenly into flame; illuminated by the flickering glow, Len looked even more nervous than Rin, but even more determined not to show it. Suddenly, Rin felt bad about teasing Len earlier, and so she said nothing as he looked over at her and managed a smile.

"One candle's okay, right?" he said, as he held the match to the candle and lit the wick, which came to life with a slow, sputtering, yet steady light of its own. "We've gotta save the others... You know, in case we need them." Len shook the match out and dropped the blackened splinter of wood into his pocket, as Rin looked at him with a tilt of the head, her features visible within the candle's circle of illumination.

"Um... Okay." Rin had been sure that Len would at least light two, for the extra candlelight, but... as usual, he was being the responsible one, and Rin couldn't help a smile. "We'll just have to stay close, right?" And Rin took Len's arm, so that they could both use the light from the white wax taper as though they were a single person. Len, slightly pink, nodded and grinned.

"It's not that scary out here, anyway." And if Len's voice was a little shaky nonetheless, Rin didn't call him on it, as they moved deeper into the forest.

* * *

It became steadily darker as they passed deeper into the woods, but their backs remained turned to the river and the town, their attention focused only on the path ahead, and on the familiar presence at their side. Because of this, perhaps, they made it farther than they'd thought they would, but although both were looking for somewhere to sleep for the night, on all sides the forest looked ever the same, close-together tree-trunks with heavily-leafed branches high over their heads. It was strangely quiet, as well, with no sound but the sound of their footsteps swishing across the newly-grown grasses; neither twin could pinpoint what that silence felt strange, but others perhaps might have realized that this forest had no natural sounds, no hooting owls or rustling undergrowth, only the sound of the wind in the trees.

"We've gotta find someplace pretty soon," said Len, looking worriedly at the melting candle in his hand; the wax was already sluicing off the pale taper like water, and he was forced to carry it at an angle to prevent the drippings from melting onto his hand. The wax formed puddles behind them, small splatters of white against the darkness of the forest. That wasn't what Len was talking about, of course; he and Rin were more concerned with the candle than with its bleeding.

"Don't we have other candles?" asked Rin, and Le was quiet for so long that Rin's eyes widened with realization, and she gave her brother a little shake with the grip still on his arm. "We don't? We _DON'T!_" Rin suddenly realized how vulnerable they would be without any light, and although she wasn't scared (definitely not!) her voice was edging into petulant as she demanded "Why didn't you say that when we were back there?" Rin waved her schoolbag in the opposite direction, not quite sure if that was indeed from whence they'd come, but the effect was obvious although Len continued to look straight ahead.

"Dunno. It's not like you're scared though, right?"

Rin's only response was an irritated sound and a maybe-just-a-little-hard nudge to Lens ribs; were all boys like this, or was it just her brother? But Rin had to admit that she was probably responsible for at least this time, so she tried to not sigh and just said, "So we should find somewhere to sleep, right?" "Well, if you're tired..." said Len, trying to sound indifferent, but Rin just parroted that back at him and took the lead, pulling Len on with her as she tried to remember where the kids in the fairy-tales always slept while in the woods. It didn't seem like they'd be coming across any friendly cabins, or even houses owned by witches, so...

* * *

It didn't take them too long from there, and soon enough they'd managed to wander into a area that, as far as they could tell, was mostly clear of any brush. Fortunately winter was not all that far gone, and since the season had been dry the ground was dry as well, although the soil, thinly covered with greenery, was like ice this deep in the forest. Rin stripped the leaves from the nearby bushes, scowling at the ones whose branches pricked her fingers, and ferried the leaves over to Len, who'd cleared an area of turf near the roots of a large and gnarled tree. The branches were wide and overhanging, so it would - at least, Len hoped it would - protect them from any rain that might be coming, and it wasn't too hard to shape the leaves into bedding. It took a little thought after that, but finally the twins agreed to use their schoolbags as pillows and Rin's jacket as the sheets, and soon enough they were settled atop their makeshift mattress, Len tucking his own coat over the both of them as they curled together.

Rin, looking up through the tree-branches, could still see a glint of the pal moon trickling between the leaves; it was a very different sight than the one which normally greeted her tired eyes at bedtime, the wooden beams of the church's ceiling, and somehow the church and the town seemed very far away. Nestling closer to her brother, Rin's sleepy voice was almost a whisper as she asked "Is this okay, Len?"

Len, with one arm draped protectively over his sister's half-awake form, thought about this for a moment or two, then nodded. "As long as it's the two of us," he concluded, "it's always okay." But Rin, by then, was already fast asleep, and with a sleepy smile of his own Len gave Rin a one-armed hug and closed his eyes too.

* * *

The next morning, the rising of the sun seemed to change the entire forest; the twins, as it turned out, had found quite the pleasant little clearing, a vaguely-circular area where the sky overhead could be seen, and the same sky that had been sprinkled with stars was now a clear, bright spring blue. Wisps of white clouds drifted past above the tree-tops, and broken-up sunbeams warmed the air around the still-sleeping boy and girl, who had kicked off their makeshift blanket some time ago yet still slept on... until a light, ticklish presence by Len's nose made the boy sneeze, startling both himself and his sister awake.

"What is it... ?" asked Rin sleepily, trying to hide a yawn with one hand as she blinked open sleepy eyes. "Len... ?"

"Just a leaf or something," Len responded, rubbing at his eyes with a fist and yawning himself. "From the... tree?" Len's voice trailed off into a question-mark, as he held up the soft yellow petal, not a leaf at all, which had surprised him awake. Rin blinked at the petal as well, and almost simultaneously the twins looked upward, towards where, last night, the tree-branches had twisted high over their heads. Their eyes widened, Rin's with awe and Len's with not some small confusion: Instead of the green leaves, which the twins would have sworn were present the night before, the branches of the tree were bare, but wrapping up the trunk and around the branches were...

"Roses!" laughed Rin, reaching up and snapping one of the butter-yellow blossoms from its climbing vine, bringing it to her nose and inhaling. Rin giggled with renewed glee as she announced, "They smell like oranges!"

"Really?" Len was half-sitting now, tilting his head back towards the sky; the tree was as tall as he remembered, still gnarled and knotted, but now it was carpeted with the yellow roses and their green vines. Curious, he pulled off a rose of his own, sniffing at it tentatively, then glanced over at Rin with surprise.

"They don't smell like oranges! They smell kind of like... bananas. Or pineapples?" Len took another dose of the scent as he tried to decide on a single 'flavor,' but finally looked up to a staring Rin as he shrugged. "Or maybe both?"

"Maybe you've got a weird rose," suggested Rin, looking at the broken-off bloom in her brother's hand. "Mine smells like oranges, definitely!"

"Here, lemme try," said Len, offering the rose in his hand; Rin accepted it and passed Len the rose she'd picked, but then confusion blossomed on both near-identical faces.

"It's still oranges!" said Rin, at the same time as Len insisted "Pineapples or bananas!" There was a moment or two of silence, before the children mutually shrugged and wordlessly agreed to let it go, although Len did add, "Were these here last night, though?"

"Must have been," shrugged Rin, not seeming too curious about the source of the flowers as she stood and shook out her hair, then began gathering roses into her hands. "We just didn't see it 'cuz it was dark and everything." As Len stretched and got to his feet, Rin added, "Do you think the Sisters would like these?"

Len paused for a moment, then grinned. "I thought we were running away?" Rin pouted somewhat, her cheeks puffing out as she exhaled impatiently.

"We were, and we _DID!_ But I'm kind of hungry, and I don't think we've got any food or anything. Right?" Rin stopped her flower-gathering for a moment to look at Len, who nodded in confirmation. "I think we're still in time for breakfast, if we hurry."

"What if they really do try to move us, though?" asked Len, and although Rin paused for a moment, she continued a moment later with a determined expression.

"Then we'll just run away again. It gets easier after the first time."

It occurred to Len that Rin had no more run away before this than he had, but oh well... He understood what she was trying to say. Dusting off his clothing and trying to smooth out the wrinkles, Len reached down to pick up his jacket, thrown aside onto the grass. Grabbing a corner of the gray material, Len's attempt to shake it out was greeted by a startled, high-pitched yowl that made him drop the corner of coat and back away. Rin, dropping the rose she'd been trying to twist off its stem, looked in Le's direction, but her brother just spread his palms in innocence - _HE _hadn't made that noise, and he had no idea what _DID_.

* * *

All was still in the clearing for several long moments, until it became obvious to Rin that Len wasn't going to do anything from here. True, she wasn't sure she wanted to do anything either, because who knew what was using Len's jacket? But they couldn't stand here forever, and Rin wasn't about to let a who-knows-what steal her brother's coat, so Rin steeled her nerve and approached the tossed-aside piece of clothing, kneeling down and carefully lifting one side up. Len held his breath, ready to either bolt for cover or rush to Rin's side, but his nerves were abruptly let down when Rin suddenly laughed, drawing the material aside.

"Len, you scaredy-cat!" she said, ignoring that just a moment or two ago, she herself hadn't been feeling so courageous. "It's just a little kitty!" And as Rin drew away the jacket, Len saw that she was right: A small kitten, with a cream-colored coat and darker blonde markings, was huddled under the jacket as though trying to hide from them. "Here kitty, c'mere!" smiled Rin, holding out her hand; tentatively, cautiously, the kitten edged closer to her, batting at Rin's fingertips with a little paw before venturing forward and allowing itself to be petted.

"First the flowers, now the cat," mumbled Len, more than a little irritated at having been surprised by the feline. "What next?"

"Oh, don't be so grumpy," Rin rebuked Len, although she was now busy trying to coax the kitten into her arms. "You're a cute kitty, aren't you? Aren't you?" Len rolled his eyes as Rin cooed over the cat, picking up his jacket and shaking it well; besides grass and leaves, strands of pale fur flew from the coat as Len flapped it vigorously, and it was apparent that the kitten had been sleeping under it just as Rin and Len had been sleeping under it last night.

"Len, look!" Rin was now cradling the kitten to her dress front, holding it in front of Len and lifting the young cat up so that Len could see... whatever Rin was talking about. "She's got eyes like us!" And indeed, it was true; the kitten, although so young that it couldn't have had its eyes open for all that long, had bright yellow cat's-eyes of the same shade as the twins. Len stared, not ever having seen the unusual eye-color in anyone besides himself and his sister, and finally smiled as he extended a hand.

"That is pretty weird, isn't it?" he asked, and neither Rin nor the kitten seemed to take offense; indeed, Rin nodded in agreement, still beaming, and the kitten allowed Len to stroke its head as Rin had done.

"We," said Rin suddenly, "should name her Dinah!" And when Len looked at her skeptically, one eyebrow arched, Rin grinned. "Well, she's gotta have a name if she's coming home with us, right?"

"Yeah," was Len's response, "but how do you know if it's a girl cat? It could be a boy cat, and Dinah's a girl's name."

"Well, obviously it's a girl!" said Rin, and Len, though skeptical, remained silent. "Besides," she added, "girls and boys can use the same name. Like how Jaime has the same name as the mailman's daughter, but one's a boy and one's a girl." Len thought about this for a moment, then grinned his approval; he didn't see any reason to argue that one, and anyway, both twins _DID_ love 'Alice Through The Looking-Glass.'

* * *

Sister Sara, of Our Lady of the Innocence, was half-frantic with worry, although her exterior was calm: She had had time, over the past night, to regain her self-control, although she could barely sleep for worrying about Rin and Len Kagamine. The two children had become her special charges since Sara had joined the convent five years ago, had reminded her of her own younger sister who was now passed from this earth, and when the twins had been missed at dinner Sister Sara had been one of the nuns who had volunteered to go looking for them. Rin and Len were spirited children, and for a time it was thought they they were simply hiding around the old church, but when no sign of them had been found the police had been notified and a search had begun.

However, by the time Rin and Len were recognized to be gone, it was already too late for too much to be done; the town itself was combed, but around it was only the grassy fields and, across the river, the forest. Sister Sara knew that neither of the twins had ever crossed the river... but, knowing them, it wasn't entirely impossible that they'd wandered into the forest and gotten themselves lost. She'd tried to convince the Mother Superior to ask the police to search the woods, but the Reverend Mother had merely soothed Sara as best she could, then reminded her that the woods was vast and tangled, and that a group of people plunging about in the darkness could result in injuries and frighten the children. So the search was halted until daylight, and Sister Sara was hovering around the edge of the town when she saw the children carefully picking their way back across the river.

Unlike most of the nuns who tended to the church, Sara was still in her twenties, having arrived at Our Lady while still little more than a girl, and she was much more likely to join in the children's games, but Sister Sara didn't remember a time where she'd run faster than she did that day, drawing up the hem of her skirt as she dashed across the yellowed field. Rin and Len looked slightly worse for their wear, their clothing rumpled and still bedecked with a few stray leaves or twigs, but otherwise they seem unharmed; Rin even laughed a little at the unexpected sight of Sister Sara hurrying to them, while Len had the decency to look at least a little repentant. In Rin's arms was some kind of furry creature, which - as a winded Sara stopped beside the twins - was obviously a very young cat.

Rin and Len both stood silently, waiting for Sister Sara to speak first; as she caught her breath, she half-way noticed that the kitten was watching her as well, as though also paying close attention. At last, towering over the children, Sara shook her head at them with a frown.

"What children you are!" she reprimanded, as they hung their heads slightly in response. "Were you two playing in the woods all this time?" "Well, Sister Sara..." began Len, before he was cut off by Rin's earnest response.

"Not even a little, Sister Sara!" she said, clutching the kitten so tightly that it began to squirm. "Most of the time, we were sleeping!"

"And why couldn't you sleep back at the church with the rest of us?" asked Sara, her relief beginning to mingle with anger at the children for scaring them all so badly; she wondered, vaguely, if this was how mothers felt about their children. The nun had the satisfaction, if it could be called that, of seeing the children's shoulders droop, as the twins suddenly realized that they were actually in trouble.

Len was the first to speak, which surprised Sister Sara a little; usually it was Rin who spoke for the two of them, but this time Len had taken the lead, looking up at Sister Sara with his odd golden eyes.

"We didn't wanna be separated," he said, simply enough. "And you said we had to move into the different dorms."

"So you ran away?" Sister Sara was having some trouble believing this; it would have been more likely that the two had just gotten caught up in their own games, losing themselves in the woods. Surely simply being relocated to different wings wouldn't be so difficult for them? "You know, Len, Rin," said Sister Sara gently, wondering if perhaps she and the other nuns had unnecessarily frightened the twins, "it won't be all that bad... You'll still be in the same building, just not in the same room, that's all."

Rin and Len exchanged glances, then Rin picked up the conversation, petting the cat in her arms almost nervously. "But you said it had to happen because we're growing up. So sometime won't we have to move more and more away from each other? Right?"

Sister Sara paused, trying to decide if explaining the process of growing up, of finding your own life, was something she should explain right now to these children, but almost on cue the stomachs of the twins grumbled hungrily, and the Kagamine siblings ducked their heads in embarrassment, muttering "Sorry, Sister." That did it; there'd be time for talk later, but now Sara's instincts were telling her to get these children back to the church, give them a hot bath and a meal, and then work this out between them. Sister Sara shook her head, then said reassuringly, "Never mind about that, both of you... No-one can make you move away from each other if you don't want to. I'm sure of that." That said, Sister Sara refocused her attention to the small bundle in Rin's arms. "But what is this, then? Are you going to take this little straggler back to the church with us?"

The twins, assured that the dreaded separation wouldn't happen, now didn't seem too worried about any possible punishments, though whether it was due to their age or to their excitement over their new friend was impossible to tell. Instead of contriteness, Rin merely held up the kitten to Sister Sara, or at least as far as the small girl could reach, and said "Look, Sister Sara! She has the same eyes as me and Len!"

Sister Sara began to muster a stern retort, but the little striped kitten mewed pitifully, as though the young nun were about to scold the cat instead of the children. Sister Sara paused, and the kitten's large yellow eyes looked up to her pleadingly; the nun almost laughed, because the expression was so much like the ones Rin and Len would pull whenever they were caught staying up after bedtime, whispering to each other from under their covers... or whenever they got in trouble, really, usually over something Rin insisted that they do. Combined with the happy expressions on the faces of both children, Sister Sara gave a sigh of fond exasperation, and reached out a hand to stroke the kitten atop the head. The cat purred happily, and both Rin and Len looked hopefully up at their caretaker.

"All right, all right," allowed Sara, trying her best to look disapproving and not entirely succeeding. "I see you two are safe and sound, and I suppose that's all that really matters." The kitten meowed at that, and Len cleared his throat.

"Um, Sister? I don't think Dinah likes being left out."

"Dinah?" Sister Sara paused at that, looking down at the cat, who was now cradled in Rin's arms.

"Like in 'Alice'?" elaborated Len, looking a little surprised that he had to explain that as he leaned over to pet the kitten.

"Yeah, like that!" chimed in Rin, beaming happily. "Dinah can stay too, right?"

_'Mother Superior will definitely have words with me...'_ thought Sara... but on the other hand, what could it hurt? She smiled and nodded, and the children broke into cheers, following along contentedly as Sister Sara turned and started back towards the church, Rin and Len trailing behind her like ducklings, with Dinah watching everything from her place in Rin's arms.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Alice Human Sacrifice, multi-part per usual, adapted to make a more put-together story... so, nothing you haven't seen before from me. XD Let's see... Well, I love off-kilter fairy-tale stuff, so here's my go at one. ^^ This one kind of got away from me, though - Spent too long on their backstory! I should be posting Spice! : The Conclusion in my other fic, but the hard-drive with that file is currently in intensive care; I'm not sure what's wrong with it, but my techie friend is taking a look at it, although it's gotta come after the computer-stuff he's actually be paid to do. Anyway, that's why you've got this instead of that! XD


	2. Gone Away

As children grow, the golden days of their childhood recede towards the distant horizon, vanishing like the golden summers that children, once they've become adults, cherish so greatly although they remember so little. In a similar way did Rin and Len – and little Dinah – grow up, as the years passed and they got older, and they learned more of the world and decided that they didn't want to have much to do with it after all. Families would adopt them, of course, but they always wound up back at the church; they'd been indulged too often, said the Mother Superior, tsk'ing severely in Sister Sara's direction... but what was done was done, and at least the Kagamine twins were (for the most part, anyway) well-behaved. It had gotten to the point where, at age fourteen, it was looking as though they'd spend the rest of their childhood at the church.

Neither Rin or Len minded this particularly. After all, they'd spent their entire lives there thus far, and they didn't see much reason why they should move, getting accustomed to an entirely different setting when they didn't have to do so. Some thought that they were unusually apathetic about their lives, perhaps almost worryingly so, but very few could hold that thought in mind when confronted with the twins, who were always filled with almost improbable amounts of energy and vim. Neither were the young pair considered lazy, as they would just as happily help with the laundry or other repairs around the church... assuming that one could find either of them, of course, and they were almost always together. It was much easier to assume that they were deftly dodging anything they considered "boring," and it was much more likely that they'd show up if their task was less menial labor and more watching the other children at the church. Although almost all of their fellow orphans, with whom Len and Rin had grown up, had either found families or moved out on their own, it seemed that there were always at least a few children that arrived at the church every year. To these girls and boys, without parents and under the strict supervision of the nuns, Len and Rin were like the ideal older siblings, and Sister Sara – who had practically raised the twins herself – would smile and comment that the twins were little more than children themselves.

Most often, however, Rin and Len liked to spend time by themselves, and there was a place where they knew they'd go unfound. Across the river, and into the woods, they would take a picnic-basket and a blanket and go hand-in-hand as they had that first time, to that clearing in the forest where the sun filtered down onto a billion sun-gold petals. Under the climbing, twisting vines of the yellow roses, careful of the thorns as a second nature, the Kagamine twins would spread open the blankets and set out their tea, the white-porcelain cups and saucers and plump white kettle that they had saved up money to buy: The chinaware was laced about with filigree vines and butter-yellow roses, and there were two – and only two – of the cups, the saucers, the spoons and scalloped plates. Despite that, Dinah was never left out; whatever they brought along that day was allowed to find its way into Dinah's stomach, cakes and sandwiches set out on a napkin, water or tea or lemonade in a little blue-and-white saucer taken from the church's kitchen. When the twins had still been young, and when Dinah had been a kitten, the sisters had told them that cats couldn't always eat the same things that humans did... but Dinah had always eaten from the plates of the twins, so the nuns, despite being grown-ups, didn't exactly know everything.

When the blanket was lain, and the tea was set out, Rin and Len would have a pleasant time under the roses; sometimes they didn't speak at all, because between them they hadn't ever needed to speak in order to share their thoughts. Dinah, with her own share of the feast, would devour what was put before her and daintily lick her paws clean, preening her whiskers like a little diva. For a long time, she would scale the tree's thick trunk and rest there until it was time to leave, but recently Dinah had preferred to sit in Rin's lap, where the girl would stroke the young cat until it purred. Once or twice Len had tried to shoo Dinah away, when the cat's tail would threaten to upend the tea, but Dinah had bared her claws and hissed at him until Rin laughed and simply moved the cup further away.

This spacious clearing was their own private Heaven, a sanctuary for the twins Kagamine from the outside world. They had noticed, after all, that no matter how hard one tried, one just couldn't hold on to the innocent days of childhood; people they had known from the church, only a few years older than they, were already falling in love and getting married, getting ready to have children of their own. One of them had even died, lost to an unexpected sickness brought on by cold weather and bad food masked by spices. The idea of this growing up had ceased to frighten them as it once had, as a concept of separation, but it still held a certain power over Rin and Len: Things seemed to change so slowly, yet so drastically, that sometimes it felt as though even the briefest of escapes was worth taking, if only for a little while. Which was why, as the springtime of their fourteenth year came to a close, Rin and Len and svelte young Dinah were crossing the river with basket in hand, Dinah in Rin's arms – It had been an icy winter and a warm spring, and the river was still running high. The water rushed below them as they moved from stepping-stone to stepping-stone, the basket held in Len's hand, and in Rin's arms Dinah glanced down at the flowing water and gave a hiss of disgust. Aside from the picnic tea and their faithful cat, Len and Rin carried nothing but their cell-phones, just in case... although, it was always shut off when they had tea. That was a time to _escape_ the world, after all, not to welcome its call.

The path through the forest was, by now, as familiar to Rin and Len as the walk to and from the church, the grocery, and so on. Still, out of habit and fond affection, the twins moved through the darkened woods with clasped hands, Len still carrying the basket and Rin leading the way. Around their feet ambled Dinah, her yellow eyes half-glowing in the dimness, her cat's-feet padding softly across the ground-cover and the outreaching branches. Sometimes she would wander away, and then Rin would stop and call for her: "Here Dinah! C'mere, sweet kitling!" She'd picked those up from Sister Margaret, one of the older nuns who was prone to grandmotherly fussing, and Len rolled his eyes and kept walking, although Rin's still-unmoving grip on his hand kept him from going on ahead.

"_Rin...._" Len started, letting his voice trail off as he tugged lightly on her hand. "Dinah's a _cat_. She'll be able to catch up with us."

"This forest is huge!" retorted Rin pausing a moment to look in the direction of Len's voice. "Even Mr. Anderson doesn't know how big it is, and he's like ninety... He was practically around when the town was starting up!"

"I don't know if he's _that_ old..." mumbled Len, but his tone of voice showed that he'd obviously resigned himself to waiting around until Rin changed her mind, and his sister gave him a grateful squeeze of the hand before a familiar furry body wrapped around her leg.

"Oh, Dinah, there you are!" The feline's eyes were dimly visible in the half-light, and then they turned away and padded off into the woods; by now, the cat knew the way just as easily as the humans did, and the twins followed along at their own rate, picking their way carefully among the exposed roots and fallen leaves.

* * *

Emerging into the clearing was, as always, as though the forest itself had been left far behind them; while the trees surrounding the clearing were indeed thickly-grown, the sky was actually visible in this roughly-circular clearing, and since that first night it seemed as though the sun was always bright when the twins were here. Dinah gamboled ahead of Rin and Len, crushing soft grass underfoot; because of the wet spring, the grass was greener than either twin had ever seen it, and Dinah easily scrambled up the tree-trunk, picking her way among the thorns and vines. Rin laughed and pulled Len along, an indulgent smile appearing on her brother's face as the picnic-basket swung from his free hand.

In something less than a moment the red-and-white blanket had been spread over the gentle turf, and Len had set out the chinaware as Rin enthusiastically unpacked the snacks and tea. Technically, it wasn't pure tea, since it had to be carried out in thermoses... but it was close enough, as she settled the teapot's lid back into place with a little clink. Under the tree, with the golden petals (that always seemed to bloom here) fluttering down around them like pieces of sunlight, Len and Rin held up their teacup and tapped them together in a familiar salutation, smiling happily at each other over the tea-set and the whipped-cream cake.

It was some time later, when half the cake and been devoured had Len had poured them both fresh cups of tea, that something very strange chose just that moment to happen. As Rin and Len were about to bring their teacups to their lips, something very unlike a rose-petal flittered down from the tree-branches overhead, slip-sliding down as though taking its sweet time, to land silent and upright in the very center of what remained of the white-topped cake.

A moment or two passed as Rin and Len paused, their tea left undrunk and suspended with their cups in midair; from overhead, Dinah looked down with her slit yellow eyes and began to work her way with feline care back down from the tree. Glancing at each other, the twins at first said nothing; then, Rin broke the silence by saying, fairly nonplused, "It looks like a playing-card."

A beat, and then Len nodded his agreement, leaning forward slightly to scrutinize the item as best he could without actually touching it. "It definitely seems like a playing card." Then, tilting his head back so that his eyes were angled skyward, Len added, "But where did it come from?"

"Maybe it got stuck in the branches?" suggested Rin, her tone matter-of-fact as she mirrored Len's pose; with her free hand, she shaded her eyes against the bright sunlight that filtered through the leaves, then shrugged as her gaze returned to the card and the cake. "And maybe Dinah just knocked it down while she was climbing around up there. Right, Dinah?" The marmalade cat, winding around from Rin's far side and rubbing her head affectionately against Rin's leg, purred... but, probably, only in response to Rin's voice, and to the hand that briefly scritched lightly behind the cat's left ear. "Did you find us something interesting, kitty?"

"Oh, _Rin_..." sighed Len, rolling his eyes, already used to be ignored by his more fanciful sibling. This Rin did once more, making Dinah huff impatiently as she reached out and plucked the card from the midst of the white whipped cream, setting down her teacup to wipe down the sturdy cardstock with a paper napkin.

"How odd..." said Rin at last, holding it between thumb and forefinger so that Len could see the card's face. "It's just an Ace of Hearts, see?"

Len, blinking set down his own cup and held out his hand, allowing Rin to wordlessly drop the playing-card onto his open palm, face up. Indeed, it looked like just any other playing-card, the stock stiff and glossy... It must be from a new deck, judging by the shining yellow heart glaring up from the white background. As Len held the card up, flicking it experimentally, Rin caught his attention with a start of surprise.

"Len, look!" she said, pointing to the card's back; Len accordingly flipped the card over, and thick black letters were scrawled over the card's blue-patterned reverse. "What's it say?" askd Rin, leaning over the tea-set, her face nudging closer to Len's as she tried to see over the top of the card. Len, with a faint flush, shook his head and leaned back, prompting Rin to pout.

"Hey, I'm reading it, okay?" was Len's response, his eyes focusing on the scribbled letters and careful not to glance up; he could feel Rin eying him impatiently, but fortunately the letters seemed easy enough to understand... once Len looked at them for a little while, and squinted a bit until the intricate blue pattern seemed to fade slightly behind the black ink.

"'Please come to the castle,'" read Len aloud, Rin's face tilted towards his with interest. "'The Queen would like you for tea.'" Having read the brief missive from back to front, Len looked up from the card-back to his sister's inquiring face, then shrugged with equal bewilderment. "That's all there is," he said, propping himself up with one hand flat against the grassy turf. "How bizarre."

"Mm." Rin didn't say much else, just that brief sound of acknowledgement and agreement, and then...

* * *

Suddenly, out of the blue, Rin had to stifle a tremendous yawn, raising her hand to cover her mouth as her eyelids fluttered. Len, trying not to laugh _too_ obviously, grinned at his twin across the picnic spread, idly bending the waxed-paper card between his fingertips as he did so.

"Someone didn't get enough beauty sleep," he teased, laughing at Rin's indignant response, half-obscured as she rubbed lightly at one of her eyes.

"I wouldn't talk if I were you," she retorted, readying an elaboration of that comeback before another yawn cut her off mid-sentence. Rin pressed a hand to her mouth, wondering why her eyelids felt so heavy, when Len, caught off-guard, echoed Rin with a yawn of his own.

"Damn it," he said, as soon as he could; "yawns _are_ catching!" Half-scowling at Rin, Len did his best to repress the encore that was threatening to further annoy him, as Rin found time to laugh at her dearest and only brother. Dinah, although she didn't have the means to laugh as Rin did, expressed what sounded like throaty feline amusement as she slid onto Rin's lap, curling into a contented furry ball as Rin stretched like a cat herself.

"Maybe it's something for us," she suggested, trying valiantly to keep the conversation on track despite her sudden weariness. "No-one else comes out here, after all..."

"Then who'd know to put it here, dummy?" asked Len, half-frowning in thought; he didn't think castles existed anymore either, especially in their part of the world, and... Why was it getting so hard to stay awake?

"Don't..." Rin frowned lightly, but she didn't seem to have the strength to do more than that; why was she suddenly so tired? Was it the cake? She had to cut out sweets, or that's what Sister Anne always said, or she'd get plump before she knew it... Ugh. What had she been saying, again?

Oh, yes.

"Don't call me a dummy... dummy..." And that was the end of Rin's witty rejoinder, as she slumped back against the flowering tree; it seemed, distantly, that she should have been wary of the thorns, although all that she felt (as she relaxed into a graceful slumber) was the almost overpowering scent of oranges. With monumental strength, Rin managed to see a glimpse of Len from the corner of his eyes, and a faint smile of triumph played over her rose-colored lips: Len must've been way more tired than Rin, since he was already lying curled on his side, facing Rin with an unguarded expression that made her smile even more brightly. Len was probably just trying to pretend _not_ to be tired because... well, that was the way he did things, it seemed.

"Len's still so silly..." murmured Rin, her eyes finally closing like draperies being drawn shut; the hand that had been stroking Dinah's fur stilled, and all was quiet once more in the peaceful, sun-drenched clearing. Rin and Len were fast asleep, but although the cat in Rin's lap was as still as her master and mistress, the animal's yellow eyes were wide. And almost expectant... As if it were waiting for something that it knew would come.

* * *

The first thing that registered, in Len's mind, was the sense of something small and very sad. It wasn't himself, and it wasn't Rin; it wasn't even Dinah or any of the children they'd ever know. It maybe wasn't even alive, not that he could say for certain... But in his dream, which wasn't much of a dream to start with, Len thought that he saw something in the distance which he shouldn't have been able to see. Something very small and lonely, who was arming itself with bloodied claws and grinning teeth so that it would never be lonely again; no-one would leave you if you could make them stay, right? So as long as you weren't alone, it was okay to do what you had to if it meant that they would stay... right?

Len, aware of himself only in that vague and fuzzy way that one is aware in dreams, wanted to say something to this small and once-fragile creature... But in all truth he had no idea what to say, if he could say anything that would change its mind. He himself never had to be alone, after all – Len had always had Rin, forever. That was how it would always be, and Len couldn't fathom the pain that must grow from knowing that no-one else will ever have a place for you in their heart.

Len, with an abrupt and inexplicable sense of panic, suddenly thought that defending your place in someone's heart was probably even more violent than trying to earn that place to start with.

Len was startled from his sleep by a cold wind running across his skin, and he opened his eyes to such an unfamiliar sight that his first reaction was to close them again. Forcing himself to stay calm and observant, Len looked around himself and tried to be rational about things: Rin was there, sleeping on the grass across from him, peaceful as ever she was. The picnic was there too, but everything else had simply vanished, the tree and the clearing and the countless yellow roses were gone, replaced by an endless dark wood with bare trees and barely any light at all. Glancing upwards, Len saw the reason: The branches overhead were woven thickly together as if by design, and the trickles of light that managed to force its way through the cracks of the living braids was barely enough to see by. Len's immediate reaction was to shake Rin awake so that he wouldn't have to suffer this by himself, but he kept himself in place, kept himself quiet, until he had calmed enough to know that he wouldn't alarm Rin by reaction. This place, he thought, was alarming enough without anything extra being added on top.

Finally, when he was certain that he had his thoughts in order, he reached across to Rin and placed a hand on her shoulder. Her skin was warm through the yellow-and-gray of her dress, and the warmth was reassuring to Len as comforting and familiar, even in this alien landscape. Giving Rin a little shake, Len kept his voice down and leaned over slightly, closer to her ear.

"Rin? Rin, wake up." Rin gave something like a little murmur, a brief frown flickering across her face before it smoothed back into the expressionless of sleep. Not quite giving up, Ren shook her again by the shoulder, a little more vigorously this time, and repeated his wake-up call. "Rin, wake up. _NOW_."

At last, Rin stirred slightly, her muscles flexing and testing themselves as she pulled herself from the depths of sleep; as her eyes shuttered open, she glanced into Len's face, so close to hers, and graced him with a sleepy smile. Pausing a moment to take in the dimness and the cold, Rin frowned.

"Did we fall asleep this long?" she asked, and Len's silence gave her eyes greater focus as she realized that something was amiss. "Len?"

"I don't think it's that we fell asleep..." he replied, carefully taking her hand and helping her up; now in a seated position, Rin's eyes widened as she looked in front of her, to the side, twisted around to look behind her... She had gone to sleep in a sunny open space, surrounded by yellow roses, but she'd woken up into a forest of half-dead thorn-trees, a cold wind blowing shriveled leaves across the ground.

"What... What's going on?!" she demanded, and before Len had a chance to attempt an answer, Rin cut him off by bolting unsteadily to her feet, thrown off by her recent slumber to quickly regaining her balance out of her adrenaline. "Where _are_ we? _Len!_" Turning to her brother, who had never failed to have an answer for her yet, Rin was struck by another wave of shock; Len was clearly as lost as she was, responding only with a hopeless, helpless, palms-up gesture and another look around.

"And where's Dinah?" Len started as he realized that, yes, the cat had gone missing, although he hadn't noticed that in the initial shock at their surroundings. Her initial confusion now compounded by worry over their lost pet, Rin futilely scanned the forest for as far as she could see, which in the gloom wasn't very far. Cupping her hands to her mouth, she called _"Dinah! Dinah, here girl!"_

"_Rin!_" hissed Len, grabbing Rin's hands and forcing them down; Rin, taken aback, looked at Len blankly.

"We don't know where we are, or how we got here... There might be animals in the forest, or people we don't want to meet, and yelling will only draw their attention!"

"Well, do you have any suggestions?" asked Rin, now beginning to get angry; this entire situation made little sense, and here Len was snapping at her! Her rational mind knew that Len must be as unnerved by this as Rin was herself, and that he had a good point... but her rational mind wasn't exactly offering up many other answers at this point, and rationality had always been Len's strong point, not Rin's.

"We don't even know which way is out," she added, as the wind blew another mess of dry leaves across their path, the floating detritus narrowly missing what was left of their cake, inexplicably transported to whatever-this-was along with them. "Or how long it would take to get there. Or eve if there is one."

"Of course there's an exit," said Len, releasing Rin's hands and avoiding her gaze. "_Every_ place has an exit, you just have to know where it is but every place has one!"

"That doesn't do _us_ any good," retorted Rin; "_We_ don't know where it is!"

* * *

"That's what you have me for, mistress," interjected a new, unfamiliar voice, low-pitched and almost a purr. "Cats always know how to find their way home."

* * *

Len's first thought was 'I'm pretty sure that's _dogs_,' but the inevitable correction was permanently forestalled by a rustle of movement in the treetops overhead. Both sets of eyes turned upward, with the result that they were completely surprised when the speaker approached them on padded feet, undetected until Rin's startled squeak dragged Len's gaze back to her in a flash. Some kind of strange creature had its arms draped over Rin's shoulders, looking mostly human but with cat-ears and a tail, and the slitted eyes of a beast. Len, trying to decide if it would be better to lunge at this presumptuous stranger or to just pull Rin away, suddenly realized that the markings on the stranger's clothing – dark-gold horizontal markings over some kind of suede-like cream fabric – looked, for some reason, familiar. But Len was sure that he didn't know any cat-people...

As the answer, however improbable, to this stranger's identity began to dawn on Len, Rin had twisted around in the stranger's loose embrace with a glare, but her anger was defused by confusion as the stranger smiled down at Rin with bright-gold eyes. Eyes, in fact, that were very close to those shared by the twins; he even looked like Len, surprisingly so, although Rin didn't seem to notice as she managed a stunned "... Dinah?"

"The very same," grinned the cat-boy, his smile so white and so large that it almost seemed unnerving. Rin, however, only eyed 'Dinah' critically, as Len drew closer, dumbfounded but ready to act in case something happened.

"Why," asked Rin, staring up at the boy, "aren't you a girl?"

"Well, you really didn't seem concerned about that when I was a kitten," said Dinah off-handedly, "and I didn't want to ruin your fun. Besides," he added, "girls and boys can have the same names, just like the two Jaimes... right?" Two sets of jaws dropped as Rin and Len heard this cat-person echo the conversation their seven-year-old selves had had seven years earlier, and "Dinah" grinned broadly once more, his blond-furred ears twitching in amusement.

"Of course, 'Dinah' isn't really one of those names."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Thanks to **Damr1990** (your English is fine!), **vocaloidofos** (I'm glad I didn't disappoint), and **ExorcistAlchemistWizamfreakfan** (yeah, the song is awesome!) for reviewing! I hope this isn't that bad of a chapter; it felt a little rushed, but between school and trying to update my other fic... Anyway, yes. Let me know what you think?


	3. Marked By Fate

There was a certain amount of shouting, to begin with, and Len's incoherent stammering eventually gave way to loud demands to "make sense," until Rin shushed him with a finger to her lips and reminded, "We have to be quiet or we'll attract attention, right?" Len blinked at her, somewhat dumbfounded that of all times his sister had chosen _this_ one to actually pay attention to his lectures, and finally Len subsided, checking the tree-trunk behind him for thorns or insects before finally easing himself against it. Thus propped up, Len looked in silence at the bizarre cat-creature before him, and then back to Rin, his hands finding the pockets of his gray trousers as he did so.

"Rin, why…" Rin looked to Len with a smiling, inquiring face, and the cat-thing that used to be Dinah echoed the movement, and Len managed to finish "… Why _aren't_ you bothered by this?"

"Well, I _am_," she responded, looking a little confused now herself. "I mean, we're in this huge forest, and we don't know where we are or how to get home, but you told me to…"

"No, I mean about _that_." And Len pointed an almost accusatory finger at "Dinah," who in turn looked supremely offended at Len's flat monotone. "Our pet cat is some kind of weird half-person now. Isn't that… _weird_, at least?"

"I'm not a 'weird half-person,'" interjected the creature in question, only to be stopped short by Len's hand, held palm-up facing away from him.

"You don't talk now," said Len, his voice as stern as if he were telling Dinah-the-kitten not to walk on the table-top at dinner. "You shouldn't talk _period_. I mean it."

"_Len!_" And Len had to double-take at the reprove in Rin's voice. "Don't talk that way to Dinah!" And as Len tried to figure out just how his twin could still call this weird half-cat, half-human "Dinah" despite ample evidence that "Dinah" was in fact male, Rin reached up and scratched the cat-person lightly behind one pointed ear, as though he were still in fact their family feline.

"Rin! What're you…"

"Human-shaped or not," said Rin, turning her head to look severely at Len, "this is our cute little kitty, and I won't have you yelling at him when he might be able to help us." Rin's tone shifted to the cutesy, babying pitch that she always used with Dinah, as she looked back at the human-form cat and resumed scratching him behind the ear.

"Isn't that right, kitling?" she asked, and "Dinah" responded with a relaxed, throaty purr.

"Exactly right, Mistress," he smiled, nuzzling Rin's neck in a way that made Rin giggle and Len color with anger.

_'That damn cat-thing! I don't care if Rin thinks he's still our pet, but he's definitely acting like…'_

… Well, like something else entirely. Which was very, very bad, so…

"Len! What's _wrong_ with you?" demanded Rin, shaking free of her brother's grip as Len glared at the cat-person across from him, who regarded him back with that same enigmatic smile. If he was upset about Len having pulled Rin from his cuddling, said cat-person definitely wasn't showing it.

Len, however, wasn't about to explain himself; Rin was notoriously slow to catch on to such things, after all. Instead, never taking his eyes off of the cat-creature, Len straightened his jacket and made sure to keep himself between said cat-thing and Len's beloved (if sometimes oblivious) twin. All Len said was "We don't have time to waste, then… Can you help us get out of the forest?"

"Of course, Master," grinned the Cat, executing a superb mock-bow with a melodramatic flourish, his striped tail whipping the ground behind him as if in emphasis. "But it won't be easy. The forest is large, and…"

The Cat's face was hidden, but Len could have sworn that the Cat's hidden grin grew larger.

"… We aren't the only ones inside it."

* * *

Roughly an hour later, Rin was enjoying a brisk walk through the forest, her energy unflagging, and doing her best to ignore Len's irritated one-sided argument with the Cat. This was how Rin had decided to call Dinah, now that she knew for certain that he was in fact a he, and at some point she planned on telling them that... sometime, of course, after the arguing had stopped.

Blowing a puff of air upward so that her blonde bangs fluttered, Rin tilted her head back and let her eyes slide over to Len and the Cat; one of them was looking very close to snapping altogether, one of them was looking as though he was having the time of his life, and there were no prizes for guessing which was which. At last, wrinkling her nose at the monotony of their hour-long trek, Rin cleared her throat and waved a gray-clad arm to catch their attention.

"Hey, you know what? Maybe if you saved your breath, you'd be keeping up. _Hmmmmm ~ ?_" And Rin grinned in Len's direction, causing her twin – who, it must be admitted, was looking a bit out of breath – scowled and ran a hand through his hair.

"I'm fine! _Geez_. Anyway, even if I wasn't, which I _AM_, I wouldn't have to be wasting my breath if this stupid cat-thing just gave me a straight answer!" To punctuate this, Len jerked a thumb in the Cat's direction without bothering to move his eyes from Rin, and the Cat's ears twitched in wordless irritation. However, the Cat himself merely smiled again, pretending to brush dust from the shirt sleeves of his jacket before folding his arms over his chest.

"Straight answers," and the smugness was evident in his voice, "are highly over-rated."

"Look, you…"

"Oh, come on," sighed Rin, toying with a lock of her hair. "Why do boys always have to do this?"

"Do what?" asked Len, prepared to take his turn at being offended. He did not, however, get the chance, as Rin waved the question off with a grin, shaking her head.

"Never mind, never mind… Hey, how about this?" Rin coughed slightly, then flung out her arm so that she was pointing directly at the Cat. Said Cat blinked slitted eyes as Rin began to address him.

"Okay!" Rin seemed determined this time, and Len decided to stand back and see what Rin's "big plan" happened to be. "Cat!"

"Is that what you're going to call him?" was Len's incredulous response, as the Cat himself arched an eyebrow and gestured towards himself with a 'who, me?' manner of moving.

"Yes! After all, that's what he is. And we can't call him Dinah anymore, can we?"

"But he's not _the_ cat," reminded Len skeptically. "He's _a_ cat. I'm sure there are others."

"Well, not now there isn't," was the Cat's cheerful reply, and while Len wondered what _that_ meant Rin was nodding and moving on.

"So, Cat! Where are we?"

"The Forest," was the Cat's prompt reply, and Len felt an already-familiar headache beginning to creep up on him.

"Any forest in particular?"

"No. Just The Forest."

Feeling odd about the way those words were said, Len intervened in the conversation just this once, eyeing the Cat with some suspicion and asking, "Did you just say that with a capital 'T' and 'F'?"

"Why of course," smiled the Cat, looking rather satisfied. "That's how you pronounce all important things, isn't it?"

"And The Forest?" asked Rin, trying to keep the conversation on the rails. "It has an end, right?"

"What a ridiculous question," muttered Len, but the Cat only nodded and pretended he hadn't heard.

"And we're heading towards the end, right?"

"Indeed we are!" beamed the Cat. "And on the shortest route, too."

"So will we reach the end of the forest soon?"

At this the Cat frowned, glanced upwards, and seemed to study the flecks of sky that were visible through the densely-intertwined branches overhead. At last, apparently having evaluated whatever it was that he was evaluating, the Cat shook his head in the negative. "Not before tonight, I'm sorry to say." And then, brightening, he added "But if we keep walking for as long as we can, we'll probably reach The Forest's border before tomorrow's evening falls."

"And you can tell this _how?_"

"Well, look at it this way…" And the Cat stretched his arms behind his head, grinning widely. "How do you know how to breathe?"

"Uh…"

"Exactly. And in the same way, I know that this forest won't let us go before dark."

"Do you have to say things like that?" shuddered Len, and Rin grinningly pulled on his sleeve with a laugh.

"Don't worry," she said, striking a courageous pose; "Big Sister will protect you!"

"Only by four minutes!" insisted Len, pointedly ignoring the Cat's feline smirk. "And anyway," he coughed, trying not to let himself be needled, "you didn't answer my question from before."

"And what question was that, Master Len?" echoed the Cat, with such perfect innocence that Len really had to resist throttling him.

"Is there _anything_..." grit Len, from between set teeth, "... in _this forest_... that can _harm us?_"

"Oh, _that_ question," grinned the Cat. "No... There's nothing in The Forest that can hurt any one of us."

Somehow, Len didn't feel all that much assured.

* * *

Despite the Cat's pessimistic view of time, Rin and Len and their accidental "sidekick" wound up walking for what felt like hours, and slowly it seemed that their surroundings began to change. Although the forest was certainly present, and although the trees themselves continued to be unpleasantly dark and twisted, the forest seemed to be thinning out as they continued to walk along. The spacings between the trees were beginning to grow, and what undergrowth there had been were beginning to soften slightly, becoming more like bending grass and less like ground-level thorns. Rin, eyes looking up, noted that the branches were beginning to pull apart as well; at times she could even see the sky, although it looked like a very odd shade of blue. Maybe it was just because, like the Cat said, things were getting late...

Idly, Rin fished her phone from the pocket of her dress and flipped it opening, glancing at the screen. The numbers that greeted her so startled Rin that she slowed to a stop, causing Len to fall into step beside her and peer worriedly at his sister over her phone.

"Rin... ?" Len was plenty worried on his own, but Rin had been calm for this entire time, and now her face was pale, as though she were finally realizing the impact of their predicament.

Still looking as though she'd seen a ghost, Rin turned her phone around and tapped the phone's narrow screen with a yellow-lacquered nail. "Look at the time!" she said, and her tension was catching, as Len saw the numbers and sucked in a breath.

"Three PM?" Topaz eyes flickered up to the patchwork sky, a dark blue but still filtering murky light through the tree-tops, and then back down to the screen. "It was 2:47 when we made it to the clearing." A beat, and Len was pulling out his own phone even as he suggested, "Maybe your phone got damaged somehow..."

"No dice!" Rin tilted her brother's phone towards her and read the numbers upside-down, the matching beaded straps on the cellphones clashing together like plastic bells from the sudden motion. "Yours is exactly the same... You're saying both our phones broke or something?"

"... Maybe." But Len knew damn well that the odds weren't that good, and he immediately pounced on the Cat with his eyes; the Cat, Len had decided, knew much more about this place than he was saying, and Rin seemed to think the same thing, following Len's glance to what was once their beloved pet. But the Cat didn't seem to notice the pair of golden eyes on his back, as he was idly inspecting a wide patch of grass with the air of a _connoisseur_.

"Hey... !" started Rin, only to be cut off by Len's grasp on her pointing hand. Rin looked down, to find Len's stare redirected from the Cat to her hand, and when Rin looked down she realized the cause for Len's stare. Across the side of Rin's hand was a buttercup-yellow splash of color, the same shade of yellow as the nail-polish Rin wore, and Rin almost immediately yanked her hand away to study the marking herself.

"What..." Skimming her other hand over the one apparently affected, Rin felt nothing unusual; it was as if she'd received some bizarre tattoo without hew knowledge, the marking less painted-on and more a part of her skin. _'__**Now**__ things are getting __**too**__**weird**__...' _she thought, pushing down a kind of panic as she lifted her eyes to her twin.

Len had no answers; he hadn't had any answers since they'd arrived in this place, and he didn't know what to tell Rin. What was that thing on her hand? If it didn't hurt her, if she hadn't noticed it until now, then it was probably not harmful but...

"What do you think you're doing?!" demanded Len, as the Cat stepped up beside him and plucked up Len's left hand as though it were a newspaper lying on a stoop. Rin echoed that question, although the answer was revealed all too unexpectedly, as the Cat fixed the hands of the twins in a firm embrace, and a matching marking was revealed on Len's hand as well.

Wide-eyed, wondering why they hadn't seen this before, Len and Rin looked down at their joined hands. When their hands were held together in just this way, the marking – which hadn't looked like anything at all – was very clearly a sunshine-yellow heart.

"This is... the playing-card, isn't it?" And Len's voice was a question rather than a statement, because what it was saying was very plainly the truth.

"What's going on here?" asked Rin, and her question now was directed not at Len but at the Cat, who smiled very whitely and gestured to the patch of grass he'd been so carefully inspecting.

"That might take a while, Mistress, and it's getting dark very fast. Maybe we should prepare to camp for the night?" Starting off to what was probably the west, fading into the dripping shadows so that his outline seemed to vanish completely, the Cat's voice drifted back to the standing twins. "I think I saw a fallen tree or two back there that should make a wonderful pair of sofas for we three."

Then there was nothing left to do but wait, and Rin looked back to see Len's eyes waiting for her. Things had become very strange, very quickly, and it seemed very likely that they'd get stranger before they started to make any sense.

Len and Rin did not drop their hands, but held closely, one to the other, as though to stave off the oncoming chill.

* * *

There were in fact a pair of fallen trees, conveniently worn free of branches and protruding limbs; they were just light enough to be moved, although they required the efforts of all three "campers" in order to serve as furniture. Before Rin and Len had finished rolling the last log into place, the Cat was crouched over a pile of dry kindling, with dead leaves and dead wood the most plentiful sight in the forest. His back to them, it was impossible to see what exactly the Cat had up his tiger-striped sleeves... but whatever it was, it worked, and soon a red-orange flame was blossoming from the center of the dead-brown bonfire's fuel.

Once the fire was started, it began to grow dark very quickly, as though the night had kindly been waiting for their fire to kindle before falling upon this strange country all at once. Strangely enough, no-one was hungry, but this didn't seem very odd to Rin or Len; probably, all the excitement had just made them too worked up to be properly hungry, although Len was sure that come the next morning, they'd miss their meals soon enough. Despite that, there were no strange noises in the forest; it reminded Rin and Len of the time they'd once run away, and it must have reminded the Cat as well, because he was smiling into the fire when Rin turned to him from her place at Len's side. There were a hundred questions she could have asked just then – about the strange marking, about their strange surroundings, about the nature of the Cat himself – but the one that Rin finally chose happened to be none of these.

"That night," she said. "Seven years ago? Where did you come from?"

"And why were you just a normal cat?" added Len, who was still a little less than sure of the feline, and who was keeping guard at Rin's side.

The Cat smiled a little more widely, his eyes gold in the firelight, and stretched a little; in the flickering light, Len started for a moment as he thought he saw claws sliding from the Cat's hands. Of course, it wasn't that at all – It was just the firelight, making his nails seem like claws, that was all. The Cat finished stretching, then looked across the fire at the human twins.

"I was just there," he said simply, shrugging his shoulders to complement his matter-of-fact tone. "That's all." A pause. "Maybe this forest, where we are now, is connected to that forest, where we found each other. Maybe I was wandering through this forest before I stumbled into the other one."

"That," said Len dismissively, "is _not_ how forests work."

"Oh?" For a moment, Len could have sworn that the Cat's imaginary claws had returned. "Then how do you explain that we're here?"

Len, for a moment, couldn't think of anything; then, he glanced down at the half-heart marking on his hand and held it up into the light. "So you're saying that this, this mark-thing, was given to us by that card, in the place where we found you, the shape-shifting cat-thing, for the sole purpose of getting us from one forest into the other?"

"Why not?" asked the Cat, and Len could only stare.

"Maybe," said Rin, "the key is not to think about it so much."

"So it won't be a problem for you?" joked Len, and mock-flinched as Rin punched him in the shoulder… or not-really-mock-flinched, as Rin was stronger than her petite frame might imply.

"We should've left you in the forest!" pouted Rin, before relaxing once again. "But, you know, maybe we should just not think about this too hard. After all, it'll probably just bring up questions we can't answer; isn't it better to focus on things one step at a time? After we get out, _then_ we can worry about how we got in."

Len mulled this over for several moments, and then reluctantly had to nod in agreement; he still wanted answers, but for now it didn't look as though he'd be getting them. And to be honest, Len would be happy if they just found a quick way out of all these writhing, tangled trees.

"Mistress Rin has a point," said the Cat, and neither of the twins reacted this time to the oddly-placed title. "All things considered, we'd be better off preparing ourselves to make a break for it then staying up all night talking about it."

"Make a break for it?" echoed Rin, her voice colored with a mixture of curiosity and foreboding. "I thought you said there's nothing in this forest that will hurt us."

"Right, nothing," agreed the Cat. "But that's not exactly no-_one_."

"What's the difference?" asked Len, this time trying to keep the exasperation from his voice, if only for Rin's sake and his own sanity. To Len's utter relief, the Cat only gave another shrug and his smile turned into a non-particular look.

"Well, there's supposed to be a terrifying woman in these woods, and I'm sure that we'll meet her before we get out. That's the way that stories like this go."

"We're in a story now?" Rin laughed, but there was a slightly hesitant note to her laughter that told her twin she wasn't taking the idea as lightly as she seemed.

"Of course, Mistress Rin," smiled the Cat, leaning back against the fallen tree-trunk and shrugging himself into place until he was comfortable. "And you and Master Len are the main characters, so of course you'd have to encounter an evil villain before you reach the end of your quest."

"That makes you the annoying comic relief, right?" And Len had the mild satisfaction of seeing the Cat's scowl aimed in his direction, as Rin did her best to stifle a laugh.

* * *

Across the fire, which was now beginning to die away to embers, the Cat appeared to be fast asleep, curled up against the fallen tree-trunk with the shadows dancing over his striped clothing, making him half-disappear. The Cat had said that, as long as Rin and Len held that heart-shaped sigil, none of whatever might wander the forest would bother them… but Len didn't entirely trust this half-cat, half-human, and although he might need his strength for the next day, he was determined to keep watch for as long as he could.

"You know," he said, his voice so low that only Rin could hear him, "I liked that Cat better when he was just Dinah." The only response Len received was the sound of his sister's slow, steady breathing, so despite himself Len only smiled and shifted carefully, making sure that the makeshift blanket was keeping Rin warm. For the rest of the night, and even as the moon began to set into the dawn, Len's golden eyes remained watchful, guarding his sister's sleep.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I hope this chapter was all right; I've been unlucky in the health department lately. XD; But, no better way to heal than to forge ahead, am I right? (Arch, I'm so late with everything right now!)

Thanks to **Sin Piedad**, **OnigimiRimi**, **ObsidianEbony** and **Yoly** for reviewing! **vocaloidofos**, you won't have to watch any of the PVs to get this series… at least, if I'm doing it right! And **Damr1990**, you don't have to read the original, but I will be using more references from the book than the song or PV had. ^^

Thanks again for reading, and if you liked it, please review!


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